‘I can’t imagine,’ Lydia began, the terror of being locked up still very fresh. She couldn’t imagine the strength it took to choose that.
‘Yeah, not really your style.’ Charlie was angry and Lydia could see she was just the nearest target. She compressed her lips to make sure she didn’t retaliate.
Charlie blew air out of his nose, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he twisted to face Lydia. ‘You don’t know what it was like, then. I’m guessing Henry didn’t include any of it in your bedtime stories. Police had been bought off for years, everything was in harmony. They knew that we were keeping order in Camberwell, that things could be so much worse. It left them free to allocate resources to Peckham. If things weren’t strictly legit, they knew we had a code and that there was a fairness to our operation. We were getting paid, but nobody works for free, right?’
Lydia nodded.
‘Then there were changes. New blood in at the top, but mainly political reform. A spotlight got turned on police corruption, pressure was applied and, all the time, the drug problems were multiplying, homelessness, overcrowding, racist attacks. Some bright spark decided that some serious crime arrests, a nice package for the organised crime hard-ons, would smooth the way.’ Charlie shook his head. ‘Probably someone was looking to climb the greasy pole, thought it would look good on their CV. That’s all it takes, you know?’ He eyeballed her. ‘You think individuals don’t have power in something like the police, but they do. That’s why I was so against you getting friendly with your copper. An avalanche can start with one little rock.’
‘I get it,’ Lydia said. ‘Really.’
‘I don’t think you do,’ Charlie said, but he sounded calmer. ‘Lyds, you’re just a kid, still. You’re brand new to all this and I’m sorry it’s not a better time. I wanted to hand you the keys to a palace, you’ve got to believe that.’
Lydia nodded to show she did, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about.
‘Anyhow, Terrence and Richard and a couple of old boys, long since passed, swallowed all the charges. And that was that. We went back to business, nice and quiet, the regime changed a few more times at the Met and the political focus shifted to immigration and, eventually, the war on terror.’
‘And business changed, too, right?’ Lydia said. ‘It’s not like it used to be.’
‘Right, right,’ Charlie said. ‘We’re very professional these days. Everything looks neat and tidy.’
That wasn’t exactly reassuring.
‘The Silvers have helped us with that over the years. Which is a worrying loose end.’
‘They’ll keep quiet,’ Lydia said. ‘They’ve got as much to lose as we have. Especially now Alejandro is in Westminster.’
‘I think you’re underestimating how much you pissed off Maria Silver. And now she’s in charge-’
‘I know, I know,’ Lydia closed her own eyes. Just for a few seconds. When she opened them, she didn’t want to ask the obvious question. She lowered her voice. ‘Do we know who did it?’
Charlie shook his head. ‘But I’m going to find out.’
Charlie told her he was handling it, but Lydia knew she had to help. Partly because it was what she did, but also because it was important that the Family saw her take action. Lydia wasn’t naïve enough to think that only Aiden had his doubts about her loyalty. Finally, if it turned out that another Family was responsible for the deaths of two Crows, then it would be better if she found out before Charlie. Hopefully it was a random in prison, some internal squabble over the in-jail pecking order. Not a sign of something bigger. And definitely not something triggered by her nosing around the Pearl residence. Or Maria taking the reins of the Silver Family.
Getting access was not going to be easy. She did have a card to play, but it wasn’t one she wanted to flip. Every time she thought she was closing the door on Fleet, it swung open again. Still. Two Crows were dead and so there was no real choice. She dialled the number. When Fleet answered she just said ‘I need a favour.’
Walking into Wandsworth Prison was like stepping back in time. The building was Victorian and the ambience in the reception room was straight out of the seventies. Lydia wouldn’t have been surprised to see a Playboy calendar on the wall. Fleet spoke to the prison officers and Lydia kept her mouth shut. After they signed the paperwork which had carbon copies – the officer passed across the yellow portion to Fleet – they were given a thorough pat down which was, according to Fleet, the bare minimum security, and then they were led through an innocuous door and down a short corridor to a set of bars with a locked gate. Instantly, the atmosphere changed and Lydia could feel the ceiling pressing down on her head. There were shouts and screams, echoing off the walls, and a rhythmic banging sound. Part of Lydia was curious to see the main prison. Fleet had described the landings filled with cells, radiating from a central area, but mostly she was just relieved that they were heading to a different place. Once through the first set of bars, they took a side door and crossed a small open yard and into a separate building.
‘Visitor suite,’ Fleet whispered.
‘Suite’ was entirely the wrong word. The room the officer led them into was covered in fag burns and paint was peeling from the top of the walls, revealing swathes of damp. A table was bolted to the floor and there were a few mismatched chairs. It smelled of disinfectant and something far worse; the remains of whatever the disinfectant was meant to clean up.
‘This is the visiting room?’ Lydia was trying to imagine more than a dozen prisoners and their families in the room. Even that small number would be a squeeze and there were nowhere near enough places for them to sit or have any measure of privacy.
‘No, miss,’ the officer said. ‘This is for private meetings. Legal counsel, police interviews,’ he nodded at Fleet as he said this. ‘General visits are in the main block.’
‘Right,’ Lydia felt stupid and vowed to keep her mouth shut and just take it all in. Her senses were buzzing but not with any particular ‘Family’ or power sense, more just a heightened feeling of danger. All those bars between her and freedom. All the badness – and misery – of the incarcerated. She tried, again, to imagine the loyalty it had taken to voluntarily walk into a place like this, knowing you were signing away the rest of your life to it.
Fleet had warned Lydia that their contact was unlikely to talk to them. He was serving eight years for aggravated assault, possession with intent to supply, and three breaking and entering charges. It seemed like a long sentence to Lydia but Fleet said he would ‘only serve four’. Besides, when he walked in, Lydia saw that he was also paying the skin tax. Black offenders routinely got handed longer sentences than their white comrades.
‘Got any burn, bruv?’ Azi strutted to the table and sprawled onto the chair, legs wide and one hand on his inner thigh, practically cupping himself. ‘What’s up, sweet thing?’ He jerked his head up in Lydia’s direction, giving her a smouldering look.
Lydia had expected incarceration to humble or beat down a person and that had to be the case for many. It didn’t seem to have affected Azi that way, however. Unless his confidence levels pre-prison had been truly stratospheric and she was witnessing him at fifty-per cent ego.
‘Don’t smoke, sorry,’ Fleet said.
Azi ignored him, keeping his gaze on Lydia. His tongue darted out and licked dry lips.
‘We’re here to talk to you about Terrence.’
Azi looked at Fleet, then. ‘What’s that to you? Nobody cares in here, innit? He was buzzing all day.’
‘Buzzing?’ Fleet said. ‘He was on something?’
‘Nah, bruv. Red light, you get me?’
‘He was in bang up?’ Fleet asked, understanding dawning in his eyes.
Lydia was still having difficulty following the conversation. ‘He was locked in his cell?’ She clarified. ‘Or isolation?’
Azi shifted his gaze again, taking his time to lick his lips suggestively and move his hand to slip
inside his baggy prison-issue joggers. Lydia held his gaze, willing herself not to blush or look away.
‘We’re banged up all day, innit. Not enough staff to let us out for our rehab classes. I’m supposed to be learning how to dry wall.’ The officer by the door shifted. ‘You should write that down.’
‘Terrence was using his emergency bell before he died? Was that unusual? For him, I mean?’ Fleet had his notebook out and Azi looked at it hungrily. ‘You give me one of them, fam. I tell you what you want to know.’
‘You want a notebook?’ Fleet raised an eyebrow. ‘Give over, Azi. You can’t write for shit.’
Lydia hid her shock, but Azi let out a barking laugh. It was the most genuine sound she had heard from him so far.
He nodded at Fleet. ‘He hardly never used that bell. Had no need. Was hardly in bang up. He was executive, you get me? Big pad on the ones with a PlayStation and all that.’
Fleet had explained to Lydia that white-collar criminals often held positions of responsibility in the prison and the nicer cells on the ground floor were perks of the jobs they did for the prison staff. High-ups like Terrence walked straight into the best prison jobs and cells, running complex systems of barter and favours with inmates and staff alike, using their skills and power from the outside world and transferring it to the inside.
‘How was he before? Did you speak to him? Did he seem his usual self?’
Azi flicked a look at the officer and said. ‘He won at snap. Same as.’
Fleet nodded as if this cryptic phrase made perfect sense.
‘No problems with anyone recently? Nothing brewing?’
Azi shook his head.
‘I find that hard to believe,’ Fleet said. ‘There’s always trouble. And Terrence is dead.’
Azi shrugged.
Lydia produced her coin, flipping it over the knuckles of her hand. She didn’t care that Fleet would see, was past that. He had showed her the scope of his commitment to his job and she wasn’t going to hide hers. She was a Crow. She was all in. And it wasn’t any of his damn business, any more.
‘Look at me,’ she said. ‘You know who Terrence was?’
Azi flicked his eyes in Lydia’s direction and they widened, just a small amount. He was hard, but he wasn’t impervious.
‘Gangster, innit.’
‘That’s right,’ Lydia said, making her tone the sing-song of a nursery school teacher speaking to a recalcitrant toddler. ‘But he wasn’t just any good old boy, he was a Crow.’
‘I know his name,’ Azi said, after a moment. He was watching the coin, no longer looking at Lydia’s face.
‘Terrence was my blood,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m keen to find out who is responsible for his death.’
‘I dunno,’ Azi said. ‘He wasn’t no bother. You would have to be cracked to take a pop...’ He trailed off before suddenly leaning forward, elbows on knees, and whispering. ‘Unless it was a screw.’
‘That’s not going to fly,’ Lydia shook her head briskly. ‘One of the inmates did this, probably under orders from somebody outside. I need a name.’
‘I dunno,’ Azi said again. Her eyes went to the guard at the door.
‘I’m not going after the man who pulled the trigger, I want the person who pointed the gun.’
Azi’s eyes flickered with confusion and Lydia wondered if she should rephrase the question.
Fleet stood up and went to speak to the officer at the door. Lydia didn’t know if he was going to try to talk him into leaving them for a few minutes or just to ask for a cup of tea, but she took the opportunity to lean in closely to Azi. She could smell body odour, cigarette smoke, and a strange sweet chemical top note. Her senses picked up fear and she flipped her coin, suspending it right in front of Azi’s face. She knew he wanted to rear back, to get away, and his eyes were all white, but she wouldn’t let him. She put a hand on his knee and stared into his eyes, pushing a little harder than she had ever tried on a person before. She only had a few seconds. ‘Who stabbed Richard?’
‘Malc.’ Azi looked confused that the words had popped out.
‘And did he do Terrence, too?’
Azi started to shrug, but it didn’t quite take. ‘I swear I dunno. Could be. Or one of the same crew.’
‘Best guess?’
‘I can’t,’ Azi said, and Lydia saw tears in his eyes. ‘They’ll kill me.’
‘Just tell me who leads the crew. Who pointed Malc at Terrence and Richard?’
Fleet was back, standing behind Lydia’s chair, blocking the guard’s view. ‘Thank you for your cooperation, Azi,’ he said loudly. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
‘I haven’t!’ Azi said, pure panic now. All traces of swagger had drained away and his skin was ashy and damp with sweat.
‘This has been so productive, DCI Fleet,’ Lydia said. ‘I reckon we should stay awhile. Make this a nice long chat. Forget speaking to anybody else on our list, waste of time when we’ve got Azi, here.’
He looked confused. ‘I’m not saying anything.’
‘It’s been very illuminating,’ Fleet said. ‘The police would like to recognise your cooperation. I wonder if there is something we can do? Officially.’
‘You can’t,’ Azi whispered. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘I can do whatever I like, son.’
‘Malc did it.’ Azi said. ‘He’s the one. Just got the idea on his own. Just did it.’
‘And how has Malc been recently?’ Lydia said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Happy? Depressed? Worried? Anything unusual? Has he come into money?’
‘Been living it large? Had more spice and burn than usual? Buying in bulk from the commissary?’
Azi’s eyes were rolling, now, he was close to passing out from fear. Lydia pushed away her concern and empathy. There was a job to do and they had to do it. ‘Answer the DCI,’ she said, shoving a little more Crow into her voice.
Azi licked his lips. ‘He’s been flush. Like he got a payday.’
‘Since Terrance and Richard died?’ Fleet confirmed.
Azi nodded, mute.
Walking away from Wandsworth, Lydia had to stop herself from running. The urge to fly was running through every bone in her body. All of those doors and locks and bars. They made something primeval in her brain go blank with panic, same as when she had been locked in the Camberwell nick. Crows did not like cages.
She got into the car with Fleet and accepted a lift back to Camberwell. It was going to be hard to be in the enclosed space with Fleet, but the rain was cold and falling with enough force to bounce up off the ground. Besides, she still had some questions.
‘So, Malc took a contract in return for cash or favours.’
‘Looks that way,’ Fleet was watching the road which meant Lydia could watch him. The line of his jaw, the creases around his eyes, the scar on his chin from when he came off a swing set as a kid.
‘But how did the order get in? Don’t they monitor correspondence?’
‘Yeah, all calls are recorded and written communications are read, whether emails or letters. Plus, inmates aren’t supposed to have mobiles.’
Lydia didn’t miss the phrasing. ‘But they do?’
‘Yup.’
‘Your standard gang-banger pay-as-you-go untraceable phone is another form of currency inside. Payments are made to and from outside payment systems, bank accounts of friends or family members, all sorts of things. You can’t have a load of cash change hands or money wired into the inmates prison account, naturally, so the big deals are all done via a third party.’
‘So unless we have the burner in question, we can’t trace the person who gave the order.’
‘Correct,’ Fleet said. ‘Which is why we’re going to have his cell tossed. If he’s smart, he doesn’t keep it there, but you know most of the boys in there aren’t criminal masterminds. We might get lucky.’
Good as his word, Fleet used his police clout and got Malc’s cell searched that afternoon. He called
Lydia straight after. ‘Text with Terrence and Richard’s names came through last week. Idiot didn’t even delete it.’
‘Number?’
‘Switched off. Probably already been dumped.’
Lydia blew out a sigh of frustration. ‘Why can’t they all be stupid?’
‘I’ve turned phone over to tech bods and they’ll see what else they can find. Don’t hold your breath, though.’
‘Right. Thank you.’ Lydia was sitting in her office chair, facing her overflowing desk. From this vantage point she could see her laptop half-buried in papers, three old coffee mugs and two empty whisky bottles. She really ought to tidy up before she had a client in here.
‘You still there?’ Fleet said.
‘Yes,’ Lydia straightened up. ‘Sorry. Just tired. What will happen to Malc? Can we talk to him?’
Fleet paused. ‘I will push for a conviction, but I have to warn you the chances are low.’
‘Azi named him,’ Lydia said.
‘Yeah, but he won’t do that again. Not in an official capacity. Put that kid in front of a judge and he’ll forget his own name let alone anyone else’s.’
Lydia knew that she had used her Crow whammy on Azi to make him talk. And she knew he would be in fear of his life if he gave evidence in court against another prisoner. Still. It seemed unlikely that it was that easy to get away with murder when you were already a convicted criminal and in a closed unit like Wandsworth. ‘Won’t the guards have seen something? Be able to coordinate evidence and with the mobile phone, too-’
‘It’s not in their interests,’ Fleet said. ‘Management will want an outcome that doesn’t point to negligence on their watch. It looks bad if people can order hits within a highly secure prison.’
Lydia swore quietly.
‘I’m sorry. I know they were your family.’
‘I never knew them,’ Lydia shrugged off his sympathy. ‘It’s not that. I’m angry.’ And worried. If the law was going to let them down, what would Charlie do in retaliation? ‘Can you get me in to interview Malc?’
The Pearl King Page 16
